


Crayon Love Hearts

by tanktrilby



Series: Colored In 'verse [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: AU, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, follows the Free! timeline, shota haru doesn't see the point of shota rin, shota haru remains unimpressed by shota rin's antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Bored in class one day, Haruka draws a boy he's never seen before. He has cherry-red hair and an obnoxious smile, and rides around on a shark. Everyone keeps going on about how cute 'that Rinrin Nanase-kun draws' is, but Haru can't stand him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crayon Love Hearts

It’s not a secret, but no one knows that the first time Haru drew Rin, he hadn’t been meaning to. Sitting in class with his palm glued to his cheek, staring outside as everyone else scribbled diligently away, he had seen a single sakura petal fall into the pool -first timidly, then with unneeded energy as it raced along with the wind for a bit, before gracefully grazing the surface of the water, resting, peaceful.

He reached for the crayons -past the blue one Makoto had helpfully pushed towards him- and hesitated, thinking. He carefully picked out the almost-untouched red crayon, which made his deskmates look at him with half-thrilled alarm.

He only had the vaguest grasp on what he planned to draw. In his mind, everything was sharp-edged and perfectly clear: the sakura tree, tall with its green arms grazing the sky; the brilliant hue of the pool, the ripples of the water; the blossom that, not content with hanging onto its tree’s fingers, wanted to feel the water.

Instead he drew a boy.

Haru spent almost a full minute staring, aghast, a little disgusted, and annoyed, staring at the unfamiliar curl of a smile beaming up at him after he was done.  He scowled at it petulantly, hoping it would go away and leave him with something he recognized.

No such luck; the boy just grinned back, impish, mischievous, _ruining_ what Haru had thought would be a perfectly acceptable picture of a pool. He crossed his arms and buried himself into a sulk, irritated with the echoes of laughter ringing in his ears.

When class let out, Makoto showed him his picture- a man with blobs of multicolored rain falling on him and a worm on his upper lip. “It’s a balloon man,” Makoto explained, as Haru squinted at it. “What did you draw, Haru-chan?”

Haru was so annoyed by the alien boy that he forgot to correct Makoto. “Nothing,” he mumbled, and pushed the picture further inside his notebook.

*

The picture-stealer soon turned into a doodle-thief as well. In the periods after Haru’s attention had completely drifted and swim club was an agonizing two hours away, the boy snuck into the margins of Haruka’s books with that irritating grin of his. He appeared with a crown of numbers or sitting on an English letter. He peered at Haruka through strings of words in his textbooks. He rode his pet shark across the titles of Haru’s essays, waving and cheering Haru on before Haru erased him with a huff.

Much to his chagrin, Haru was getting better at drawing him as a result. The mess of red hair became longer, sweeping across the boy’s face and around it. The face more heart-shaped, the jaw less girly.

One day, inspired, he gave the boy little fang teeth to show when he smiled, and stared blankly at the result. He got the distinct impression that the boy was delighted with this new development- the grin came impossibly alive, sharp and bright and challenging.

 Haru didn’t erase him that time. He tore off the page from his book and tucked it in the same notebook that had the original, and felt ridiculous for hours afterward.

*

Makoto found out -Makoto always found out- and made a fuss, as usual.

Haru was idly sketching the boy under a spiral of increasingly disinterested attempts at arithmetic equations. Makoto leaned over to his desk as soon as class let out and made a funny noise that Haru paid no mind to, preoccupied with getting the shark’s gills right.

“Haru,” Makoto said, touching the page slowly, uncertainly. When Haruka looked at him, his eyes were bright, sparkling with a delight that always made Haru feel a little proud of himself. “Who is that?”

“You aren’t scared of him? Haru asked curiously. Makoto was scared of _everything_.

Makoto shook his head, eyes still stuck on the boy -who now, Haru noticed, seemed to be waving at Makoto more than Haru, as if having sensed an easier sell. His hair was drifting outwards in long strands like seaweed and his eyes had a mischievous slant to them, and it was, Haru admitted, one of his better sketches.

“Let’s show it to Nagisa,” Makoto said suddenly, and Haru stared at him with growing dread.

He had a nasty feeling that the situation was beginning to spiral out of his control. Naturally, it was all shark-boy’s fault.

As he did whenever change breathed down his neck, Haruka crossed his arms stubbornly and refused to budge, even when Makoto tried to pull him (gently) towards swim club. “No.”

“Okay then,” Makoto’s eyes were big and very sad.

“I mean-“ Haru said, mildly alarmed. Makoto looked at him, then at his sketch longingly, and Haru crumbled like sand. “Fine,” he mumbled, turning his head away so that he only caught Makoto’s treacherous joy from the corner of his eye.

The boy had won.

*

“So cute, Nanase-kun!”

Haru didn’t understand what it was about the picture that made Hazuki Nagisa tackle him with a hug, squealing in his ear. It was just a drawing. Then again, Haruka had resigned himself by then to not understanding a lot of what other people do. People were strange.

“He looks like someone from onee-chan’s manga!”

This, however, was a level of strangeness that Haru wasn’t used to. “Let me go,” he squirmed a little. “Makoto!”

Makoto smiled at him and gently wrenched Nagisa off by sacrificing himself to the hug. “I knew you could draw, Haru,” he said quietly, as he and Nagisa looked at the sketch with sparkling eyes, “but this is… he’s really pretty, Haru.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Haruka muttered, trying to will down his blush.

He missed the conspiratorial glance Nagisa and Makoto exchanged. “Nanase-kun, Nanase-kun,” Nagisa chirped. “What’s his name?”

When Haru refused to answer, he heard the smile in Makoto’s voice when he said, “He’s riding a shark, so maybe he’s Same-chan?”

Nagisa shook his head. “No, no, he’s a swimmer like us, so he has to have a girly name!”

Haruka realized that in a pencil sketch, they couldn’t see what he did; the bright red eyes, the fluttery red hair. “…Rin.”

They both turned toward him instantly. “What was that, Haru?”

Haru scowled harder at the lockers. “His name’s Rin.”

He was almost expecting it when he got tackled with another hug. Makoto joined too.

“Get off,” Haru complained.

*

Haru blamed Rin for multiple things, including going through the troublesome experience of the national art competition when he was twelve. At the end of it he was standing, thoroughly bemused, beside a framed watercolor painting of Rin, with a gold medal around his neck as everyone clambered to congratulate him and coo at Rin-chan. 

The painting got hung on the wall of his bedroom, along with the rosette that said Number 1, and his grandma met his eyes afterwards, the look in her eyes soft and proud. She showed it to her friends, her hand small, warm, on his back, making him glow with unexpected accomplishment. Rin caught his eye, his smile huge.

Nagisa moved away for middle school, so that’s one less person to badger him for a fully-fledged manga, but Makoto convinced him to let Rin come above water too. Haru staunchly refused to let him for the first few months (what proper sea-dweller would possibly want to leave the depths of the ocean?) but, as usual, Makoto wore him down. He remembered the curious sakura blossom and grudgingly let Rin come to dry land.

The clothes that he replaced the green swim trunks with were as gaudy and over-bright as Haru could possibly make them. He reached for colors he never would have bothered with -a sunshiny yellow that looks like someone sicked up sunlight, a cheery green that made his eyes itch uncomfortably- and very deliberately didn’t allow him even a touch of blue.

He wasn’t really surprised when Rin, smug and smirking and thrilled, looked very, very good in them.

*

Rin grew up as they did, because it would be silly if he didn’t. In the wintertime, Haru drew him snuggling up with a family of sharks in the warm currents, and gave him a scarf and a coat when he came up to dry land.

After Obaa-san’s funeral, Haru remembered staring until his vision blurred at the picture on his wall, lying on top of his bed, fully dressed. The house was empty, perfectly still, and his veins felt full of poisonous sludge, moving towards his heart. Rin’s smile was dimmed in the gloom of the dusk. He looked small and sad, swimming away with heavy limbs from Haruka.

That was the day Haruka realized that neither of them were free- him or Rin.

*

Haru draws Rin smiling less often, and when he does, he takes care to give him shark teeth to defend himself better. Makoto looks worried, opens his mouth to say something, but lets his shoulders slump and looks away each time.

The water feels different, too- every pool feels bigger than it has to, and the ocean becomes a looming, terrifying prospect full of the unknown. He goes home and it gets worse- his steps echo on the floorboards, and every surface seems empty, friendless.

He keeps his head down out of habit- tries to weather the storm, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

*

The second year of high school, Haru is knocked out of limbo by Nagisa’s reappearance, a sketch of Rin in hand. The first year blushes and admits that he stole it from Haru’s notebook when he wasn’t looking, and stands before them, beaming, as Makoto and Haru peer at the Rin that was.

The drawing’s terrible, is Haruka’s first conclusion. He can’t believe everyone told him he was as good at that as he was at swimming, because that’s an insult to both Rin and the water. Haru scowls murder at it before he realizes that Makoto is laughing, surprised and happy.

“Look at you, Haru,” he says, shaking his head. He points at Rin. “Rin-chan used to be really carefree, huh?”

“It’s just a drawing,” Haru protests, trying to orient himself to the heady rush of emotion- he truly _hated_ that picture.

Nagisa looks between them curiously. “Haru-chan, Mako-chan,” he wheedles. “What does Rinrin look like now?”

“Older,” Makoto says, glancing at Haru for confirmation. “Bigger,” Makoto puffs out his chest to elaborate, and Nagisa’s eyes go wide and round. “Lots of pointy teeth,” Makoto bares his own, and Nagisa claps at the acting and Haru rolls his eyes.

“Isn’t he cute anymore?” Nagisa asks, disappointed.

Makoto smiles. “Rin-chan’s still very cute.” He nudges Haru’s side gently. “Right, Haru-chan?”

Haruka huffs.

*

After a series of troublesome, yet ultimately rewarding ideas, Nagisa’s last suggestion is where Haru digs his heels in.

“Absolutely not,” he says firmly.

Nagisa’s eyes begin to shimmer, and the grip around Haru’s arm gets tight enough to crush a popsicle. “Pleeease, Haru-chan?”

Haru shakes his head stubbornly.

Makoto wanders over, tossing two handfuls of weeds on to a pile on the left and wiping his hands on his trousers. “What’s going on?” he asks mildly.

Nagisa’s eyes begin sparkling dangerously. Haruka knows that look; his stomach plummets accordingly.

“Don’t,” he warns.

It’s as futile as any of his denials have been. Nagisa latches on to Makoto’s side as well, hanging from his shoulder with a bright, hopeful expression. “Mako-chan, Mako-chan, we’ll need a mascot for our new swim club, right?”

Haru shakes his head frantically at Makoto, but the idiot just looks confused and says, “Well…I guess. We had Iwatobi-chan in middle school, and…”

Nagisa shakes his head so fast his blonde curls blur. “No, no, no! Rinrin could do it!”

Haru says sharply, “No he couldn’t,” but it’s too late. Makoto’s eyes are widening, a familiar light coming into them.

“Haru-chan,” he begins, but Haru shakes his head, his jaw set.

“No.”

“But Rin-chan might like it.”

“I don’t care.”

“Please?”

Haruka looks away from their eyes, making an irritated sound in the back of his throat. “…maybe.”

*

The day that they finally manage to open the pool, there’s a long line of girls standing near it.

Haruka looks at Makoto accusingly. _What did you do._

Makoto shakes his head subtly as he helps Haru out of the (admittedly, a little cold) pool. He nods towards where Nagisa is standing under their official banner. Now that Haru really looks, all the girls seem to be pointing at said banner, or specifically-

“Looks like Rin-chan’s really popular,” Makoto says teasingly, and Haruka sulks.

Nagisa waves them over. “Guess you really couldn’t wait to swim, huh, Haru-chan.” He giggles, and holds up a selection of brightly-colored plastic. “Look what Hana-chan from our year got us!”

Makoto and Haru leaned down to inspect it.

“It’s key rings of Rinrin!” Nagisa whoops. “And I don’t know why, but as soon as I started handing them out, all of these people wanted to join our club!”

Makoto laughs uneasily, glancing at Haru. “I’m not sure…we can only have one lady manager anyway, and-“

“It’s fine!” Nagisa says. “They all want to cheer us on at swimming meets and stuff, so we’ll have lots of support all the time.”

Haru looks around. They’d still need another member to be a proper club even after all this trouble, but he admits that…maybe this was Rin’s way of helping out. There were probably benefits to being popular as a club. Probably.

And besides, he thinks, reluctantly affectionate, Rin would probably love this. He’d flex and preen and throw around those irritating glittering smiles.

He looks up at the banner, where Rin is swimming with his shark, eyes bright with promise. A weight lifts off his chest, and ignoring everyone’s cries and Makoto’s exasperated sigh, he leaps straight back into the pool.

*

The years pass. They win races, and even form a family with a strange first-year who over-thinks the freedom of the water but pronounces Rin ‘beautiful’. They help Rei find what to swim for - because Haruka knows by now that not everyone swam to feel the water- and to find a home in the butterfly. They each swim their respective strokes and they keep breaking records, and at one point, Makoto even starts talking about a medley relay. Haru’s unable to see why they should go to the trouble, so the idea dies down without causing too much upset.  

Rin -who was supposed to be a secret Haruka shared with his closest friends, Rin who had been with him forever, Rin who was _just a drawing_ \- became a school-wide celebrity, and Haruka’s unthinking scribbles began going up on notice boards. People asked him to draw Rin doing the strangest things, things he wasn’t sure Rin wanted to do or not. It was a distance that he wasn’t used to feeling, and it gaped ever wider when he realized that drawing had stopped giving him the same amount of pleasure swimming did.

 Haru’s heart began feeling strange and heavy once again whenever he thought about Rin, so he stopped. Not entirely; sometimes he could feel his fingers spasming in class and whenever he was alone, but if he tried to draw something else it would look bleak and tired and if he drew Rin he would be looking at Haru all wrong.

So he swam more and drew less, ignoring Rin’s fanclub and their manager alike, and he kept winning and not caring.  

And then, one day, Makoto said, not looking at Haru, “I’m thinking of going to university in Tokyo.”

Haruka froze.

“I think-“ Makoto stumbled, “I’m getting the right scores, and I’ve always wanted- Haru?”

Haruka was staring at the ground, his eyes very wide. His hands didn’t look like his hands.

“I want to stay, I want to be wherever you are,” Makoto says desperately. “It’s so hard, but- do you hate me?”

Haru looks up at him quickly. His eyes are wide, bright and scared, and he’s got a hand over his mouth, pushing the sobs back.

Haru touches his cheek once, for good luck. Then he walks out of the house, leaving Makoto standing very still.

*

He comes back to find Makoto sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He looks up when Haru sits next to him.

“Haru?” he says, rough and surprised.

Haru wordlessly pushes the frame towards him. Makoto’s eyes widen.

“Haru, you- this is-“

“Keep it,” Haru says, his words catching on his throat when Makoto’s fingers trace the lines of young-Rin’s watercolored face, then the faded red rosette at the bottom. Haru struggles for the words that he needs now, more than ever. “He’ll help you. For us to be with you. And to be free.”

Makoto covers his hand with his mouth. “But, Haru-“

Haru shakes his head, stubborn. “I want you to keep it.”

Makoto’s arms come up around him, tentative, warm. He leans forward. “Thank you, Haru-chan,” Makoto says in a low voice. His hair tickles Haruka’s cheek, and Haru closes his eyes and hugs back.

“…drop the -chan.”

*

It’s nearly dawn when Haru heads back to his house, having dozed off on Makoto’s living room floor playing video games. He sees figures behind curtains in the houses he’s passing, kids beginning to stir sleepily, still too early to get up for school. He passes a cat curled up on a step and pauses to let it bump its nose against his fingers drowsily.

When he comes to face his house, he stops abruptly. There’s someone sitting outside his front door.

He recognizes the emotion pooling in his stomach; a sick twist of anticipation and disbelief, wildly, uncomfortably familiar. Only this time he’s feeling it thousandfold, a million facets and angles and colors hitting him at once. He feels it down to every cell in his body.

It only intensifies when the figure sitting on his front step raises its head. The black cap tilts to reveal strands of burgundy hair.

Red eyes widen.

Haruka takes a step forward before he can stop himself. The man clambers to his feet, graceless and hurried, standing up a breath away from Haruka.

The hand that pushes his chin up to meet cherry-tinted eyes is very warm. A quick, surprised inhale. If Haru concentrates, he could feel the hot demanding push of blood beneath the skin, the pulse thrumming, fast and impatient just a few inches away.

A smile that escalates into a grin. Sharp teeth that Haru knows better than his own.

“Took you long enough,” says Rin. “Haruka.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ten years down the line, I will point at this fic and say, that's when it all went wrong. In my (very weak) defense, everything seems cute at two a.m. 
> 
> Thanks to dec for the beta and relentless mockery.


End file.
